Millions of people around the planet start their day with a cup of their favorite tea or coffee. This ritual is very common to us all and we all know that morning cup of tea or coffee can help us refresh our mind after the night’s sleep and get focused on the things we need to accomplish during the day. Certainly, such powerful refreshing effects of these morning beverages can be achieved at the expense of high caffeine content in both tea and coffee. Caffeine is an alkaloid which is known for its effects on our nerve system. It causes irritability, anxiety, headaches, increased heart rate and high blood pressure. However, such effects will manifest only in that situation, when the levels of caffeine intake are really high.

Many people wonder, what type of tea contains the greatest amounts of caffeine? For example, some of my friends are convinced that the stronger the tea, the more caffeine it has. At that, some of them think that green tea has less amounts of caffeine than the black tea, because black teas are darker and stronger. Those are quite weird ideas, aren’t they? Specialists argue that high-quality non-flavored green teas have the highest content of caffeine among all teas: up to 80 mg of caffeine in one big cup (8 ounces). High-quality non-flavored back teas contain up to 60-70 mg of caffeine. Green flavored teas contain from 45 to 70 mg of caffeine, and black flavored teas can have caffeine content levels as low as 35-40 mg in a cup.

This is very important to keep in mind the results of this study, because as we can see, the strength and color of tea does not play any important role when talking about caffeine content. There are some moms, who give green tea to their infants thinking that green tea is not strong enough to harm their children. Remember that children below 2 are not recommended to have caffeinated drinks at all! And what about the adults? There are certain groups of people, who also have to stay away from caffeine. Those include, first of all, the people who suffer from atherosclerosis, high blood pressure and problems with vessels, as well as those who have gastritis or peptic ulcer. Finally, pregnant and nursing women have to limit their caffeine intake and drink no more than 1-2 cups of tea a day.

At the same time, for the majority of us, moderate doses of caffeine will not bring any harm and can be even useful. Consuming 600-700 mg of caffein every day is considered to be a normal dose of this substance, but maximum daily dose of it should not exceed 800 mg. Since maximum content of caffein in one cup of green tea is 85 mg, drinking 7-8 cups of tea a day should be considered safe. Recently, British specialists discovered that it is optimal to drink 8 cups of fluid every day, so you can include 3-5 cups of strong tea in your daily fluid intake, ejoiy this wonderful drink and benefit from its numerous positive effects on your health.

Author Info: Hi! My name is Carla and I am a 5th year medical student at HYMS. I am interested in alternative medicine and I have done months researching the topic of herbal medicine. Besides, I like interviewing people and learning more about their experiences with one or another type of herbal treatments. I am willing to contribute to this site with my knowledge, and I would be happy to help you out to the best of my ability with any specific questions or problems related to alternative medicine.

2 Responses to “Caffeine in Your Cup of Tea: Is It Harmful?”

Interesting article. Where did you get the statistics for the caffeine content of green tea from? From what I’ve read in The Story of Tea (by Mary Lou Heiss), it seems like there is quite substantial variation in the caffeine content of green tea from cup to cup. It really depends on which study you read. Factors like where the tea was grown, how it was produced and how it is brewed have a significant impact on the level of caffeine.

Dear Eric,
You are absolutely right: different studies show different results as to caffeine content in green tea. I used a research of PharmD Kristi Monson and Arthur Schoenstadt, MD, which is partially publicized here: http://cancer.emedtv.com/green-tea/green-tea.html. Many experts are convinced that caffeine content in green tea depends primarily on the quality of the tea and high-quality green teas (non-flavored) have really high levels of caffeine.